Is Maine Going Socialist? Mainers Vote On It This November

This coming November, Maine voters will see a question on their ballots: “Do you want to create a new power company governed by an elected board to acquire and operate existing for-profit electricity transmission and distribution facilities in Maine?” Yesterday, the Portland Press Herald explained that “The proposal for the new plan would create an elected 13-member board made up of a mix of residents from across the state and designated experts. The board would hire a private grid operator chosen through a competitive bidding process… If Mainers vote yes, they’d make history— endorsing a first-of-its-kind plan to create a state-level public power company through a hostile takeover. Supporters want to buy out the assets of Central Maine Power and Versant Power— which distribute 97% of the state’s electricity— and replace them with Pine Tree Power, a new not-for-profit distribution utility.”

That’s the real socialism that the Republicans are always crying about. The two utilities are spending millions of dollars to defeat the proposal— so far over $16 million.

They are paying former state legislators-- Charlotte Warren (D), Edward Kane (D) and Andre Cushing (R)-- to advocate against the proposed power alternative and have also paid a DCCC-connected firm staffed with Obama campaign alumni to help them undercut the project.

“It’s really hard to recognize the features of a corporate influence campaign a lot of the time,” said Melissa Aronczyk, an associate professor at Rutgers University who studies the public relations industry. “Because it looks so much like what activists or advocates or ordinary groups on the other side are trying to do. And that’s by design.”

At its core, the ballot question is a battle over the future of who will distribute renewable energy in Maine. Existing utilities want to maintain control over the poles and wires and the profits that flow from them. Activists say a not-for-profit company managed by local people can bring about a transition that’s more equitable and less costly.

Nationally, the Maine campaign is emblematic of how legacy, investor-owned utilities are being challenged, struggling to maintain their dominance as the impacts of climate change force an uneven, contentious transition to a low-carbon economy.

The struggle is also unique in another way. Maine has strong campaign finance laws. Its utilities must disclose their political spending-- a rarity.

Adding to the complexity: Neither of Maine’s top two power companies create electricity; they only distribute it. And Maine has one of the cleanest electricity mixes in the country. Central Maine Power’s parent company is also ranked among the top wind and solar generators in the United States.

Yet many Mainers consider the two companies unreliable, expensive and out-of-touch. CMP ranks poorly for customer service, but that may be largely attributed to Maine’s status as the nation’s most forested state-- trees regularly topple power lines here, and a big storm can cause outages lasting days. CMP also botched a rollout of a new billing system in 2017. And the utility is under fire from renewable energy advocates who accuse it of foot-dragging on large solar farm connections.

Nativism also fuels some Mainers’ animosity. Avangrid, the CMP parent company, is owned by Iberdrola S.A., a Spanish energy conglomerate whose largest shareholder is the Qatar Investment Authority. Versant Power’s parent is owned by the city of Calgary, Canada. Opponents of the existing utilities paint a picture of greedy, global interests siphoning money away from Maine and thwarting the local control needed to upgrade the grid.

…The campaign against Pine Tree Power has so far spent up to $1 million this year on Facebook advertisements warning of the dangers of a government takeover of the power lines, according to data from Meta, the parent company of Facebook.

“A handful of politicians want to spend $13.5 billion to take over Maine’s power grid, putting costs and reliability in the hands of the government,” reads the text of one Facebook ad.

Other ads paint the ballot initiative for Pine Tree Power as a ploy by the Democratic Socialists of America: “What do you think about the DSA’s plan for government-controlled power in Maine?”

The $16.5 million the utilities have so far spent fighting public power stands in stark contrast with the $608,703 spent by Our Power, which raised most of its funds from small individuals and gifts from progressive foundations.

Avangrid’s cash has largely gone toward hiring large Democratic consultancy firms.

In addition to Left Hook, the strategy group that received $5 million, Global Strategy Group, a New York-based polling firm, was paid $690,000. The company has a history of working with fossil fuel giant Chesapeake Energy and with Amazon to bust union organizing on Staten Island.

As Election Day nears, utility executives in other states will be watching the campaign.

The referendum presents a threat not only to Avangrid’s business model in Maine, said Colburn, the former energy policy consultant, but also to the utilities it operates in Connecticut and New York. State governments there also have aggressive climate agendas, and customers frustrated by high rates and storm outages.

“This is one ship they don’t want to see launched,” Colburn said of investor-backed utilities across the U.S., “because it could turn into an armada.”